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National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia

Achievements

The Government has created an additional 1.4 million jobs since April 1983 providing employment and training opportunities and income security for Australians of all backgrounds. in that period the unemployment rate for the overseas born has declined from 12.1% to 6.8%, and that for women has fallen from 10.4% to 6.7% (April 1983 to April 1989).

The Government has also initiated an ambitious program of reform of the education and training system and the labour market. The objective has been to increase the quantity and quality of skills held by the workforce and to improve our economic performance, competitiveness and productivity. It has:

  • restructured the education and employment portfolios and associated advisory mechanisms to reflect more closely its priorities of bringing education into line with Australia's economic needs;

  • restructured Commonwealth funding for TAFE to improve the responsiveness of TAFE systems to industry training needs;

  • restructured its labour market programs away from work experience and job creation to emphasise formal, structured training;

  • proposed the establishment with State and Territory Government support of a National Training Board to work towards nationally consistent training standards, accreditation processes and competency-based skills training and assessment;

  • supported a program of labour market reform through award restructuring;

  • signalled that it will require a greater commitment to training from industry and employers;

  • initiated a national schools strategy involving the establishment of agreed national goals for Australian schools and collaborative curriculum development to establish national curriculum statements;

  • embarked upon a program of reform in higher education to improve its responsiveness to Australia's economic needs as well as significantly increasing higher education places including an extra 40,000 places by 1991 announced in the 1988-89 Budget; and

  • developed a Youth Strategy to improve the employment prospects of young people and their participation in education and training.

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